ITALY: SANREMO HOSTS, GUESTS AND STAGE REVEALED

Today the Sanremo festival had its first official press conference and Carlo Conti announced Maria De Filippi as his co-hostess. The king od Rai and the Queen of Mediaset will have a joint adventure so get ready for Maria's rolling "r" and very, very deep voice. She's borrowed from the competing channel for free so she doesn't get paid by Rai or the taxpayers.

Maybe that's why she didn't look very happy today hardly ever smiling and looking rather miserable most of the time....No other hosts or "vallette" will be walking down the legendary staircase, so Sanremo becomes very much like Eurovision with a hosting couple doing the job alone.

The stage (have a look at the video here) is already being built and will be very technological as they are these days giving "each song a different look and feel" so this is also very Eurovision, isn't it? It seems the circle is closing as Eurovision was born from the idea of imitating Sanremo. Over the decades these two festivals went to different directions but Carlo Conti seems to be doing big steps to make them look like one again. Sanremo now imitates Eurovision, also in the elimination procedures a bit. Or Melodifestivalen (among others) actually. There will be ten cameras, four of them remote controlled and 400 people working in the project.

The super guests are previously confirmed Tiziano Ferro, Giorgia who has been to Sanremo three times as Big and placed 1st, 2nd and 3rd. That must be some kind of record? Mika will be there following his Italian success after being the X Factor judge and then hosting his own succcesful show on Rai2. Ricky Martin returns to sing for Maria as Conti joked, and then there will be also Rag'n Bone Man. But more names will be added once their contracts have been sorted out.

For the covers night the Big won't be singing any songs by Luigi Tengo or Claudio Villa to honorate them in some other way during the festival. Three of the covers will be Adriano Celentano songs, two Francesco De Gregori's. Franco Battiato will be covered by Michele Bravi, Anna Oxa by Paola Turci and Gianni Morandi by Raige & Giulia Luzi.

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ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

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SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further? No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

CAROLA'S BOOBS STEAL THE SHOW, SVT APOLOGIES

Update! Another thing got Swedes talking last night: Carola's boobs when she was giving away an award. This is not the first time her boombs cause headlines; her misfortunate adventures in the 80's in Japan wer explained with her boobs being too big for Japanese market. Ok.... Or was it the song ? Anyways, Carola apologies and says she thinks the dress is stylish and elegant (even her friends said so) and she's a mature woman in her 40s, not a 16-year-old girl and looks like one. The Swedish Oscars, Guldbagge awards were given out last night. Carola was there as a guest star to sing Barbra Streisand's The way we were when honoring the movie stars who passed away during 2012. However, the cameras were too much on Carola, not on the stars showed in photos in the background and that upset many viewers as that part of the show was to celebrate them, not Carola. Oh well... The producer of the show tells in Aftonbladet the part of the show was made the sam...

Russia recycles the video

Here is the video for Alexey's previous hit Бам Бам! and here is the video for his Eurovision 2011 entry Get you as Alex Sparrow as he likes to be called now abraod. Looks like he potreys the new rich Russia well.... The only problem is that he can't play the bad part convincingly not even a second. And did I say the song is crap? And of course as he is a Russian star he must have nude fotos of him flotaing around internet trying to be sexy and he fails there, too, big time. If you are not bad nor sexy you shouldn't push it. Maybe he should stick to singing jolly little numbers like the Kalinka rip off instead....

Regina Lund - naked and censored

Regina Lund's new video Jag är osynlig was censored by Youtube only minutes after it had been uploaded. In the video she was playing a female Jesus who gets crusified in the end. "I was shocked!" she says. "There's nothing more naked in it as in every church! It's ok to have naked man hanging on the wall but my nakedness is too much on internet? ". Oh well, no comment. She's prepairing a new album Dare Regina Lund and we of course remember her from her Melodifestivalen 2007 adventure with Rainbow star .

GREECE: HELENA PAPARIZOU HITS AGAIN WITH HAIDE

Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face.... Here's the English version , below the Greek version.

TIM SCHOU AND HIS NAKED GRAVITY

Tim Schou has a pretty good solo career going since he left his friends in London. He's travelling the world and relesing songs and videos. The latest one is a great track and comes with a steamy video that kinda takes away from the song really. But who's complaining. If you got it, flaunt it. Enjoy the video below. This post coming after the other Dane, Rasmus Seebach as wishlist for Eurovision. To think about it, Tim would do nicely, too. Maybe he should give it another go?

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW GETS NAKED FOR THE GOOD CAUSE

Reigning Eurovision song contest champion and the host of the next contest in May 2016 in Stockholm Mäns Zelmerlöw bares it almost all in GT following some other Eurovision stars like Blue and Jedward ( see more here ) All for the good cause of course, prostate cancer - something this blogger can also relate having experienced it in my closest circle. Nothing to laugh about. The annual Naked issue of GT or Gay Times features also several other celebrity men out of their designer fashion and stage or sports outfits. I guess Christmas came early to some fans when they can unwrap their most wished gift already now.... Maybe. But it's not the first time he gets naked.... he did so when hosting the annual QX Gala some years ago. Who knows what he and Petra have in store for us in May?!

Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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